Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

The Tripoli Six revisited

Last fall, I and quite a few other bloggers wrote about the Tripoli Six. These are six foreign medical workers arrested for allegedly intentionally infecting over 400 children with HIV in a Libyan hospital and, thanks to the ignorant hysteria whipped up against them and the need of the Libyan government to find scapegoats for […]

Categories
Bioethics Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

A family practitioner and epidemiologist are prescribing dichloracetate (DCA) in Canada

It never seems to end, does it? I’m talking about the hype and questionable practices revolving around dichloroacetate (DCA), the small molecule chemotherapeutic agent that targets the Warburg effect, in essence normalizing the metabolism of tumor cells and thereby inhibiting their growth. (See here and here for more details.) A report by Evangelos Michelakis at […]

Categories
Evolution Intelligent design/creationism Religion Skepticism/critical thinking

The Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists, revisited one (hopefully) last time

i think I’ve made it exquisitely clear how much I detest and despise the term “Nevile Chamberlain School of Evolutionists.” Indeed, my disgust at the term led me to sic the Hitler Zombie on (of all people) Richard Dawkins, the originator of the term, a deed that was either the boldest thing I’ve ever done […]

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Cancer Clinical trials Medicine

An idea to promote innovation in cancer research

Over the last couple of months, I’ve written periodically about cancer research and the complaints that the present system of funding grants and of peer review stifles innovation, as well as whether ideas for which there is some evidence but which fall out of the mainstream are given a fair shake. My overall take has […]

Categories
Clinical trials Medicine

Well, well, well, what have we here about the Avandia study?

I’ve been meaning to go through the recent meta-analysis of Avandia published by the New England Journal of Medicine that purported to show major increase in the risk for cardiac events (myocardial infarctions and cardiac death) in patients who use Avandia, but somehow never got around to it. I’m not sure I need to now, […]